Cerebral Tumours Pilot - Romania
The Context
Accurate data is paramount for diagnosing, treating, prognosticating, and monitoring patients with tumors. Radiological assessments, primarily through computer tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including functional MRI with contrast agents, are essential. Surgical interventions, Simpson grade (particularly for meningiomas), histopathological characteristics from biopsies, and clinical symptoms/signs all play crucial roles in patient management.
However, some of the hospitals from the North-East region of Romania are specialized in one or more branches of interest: radiology, neurology and neurosurgery, histopathology, oncology and radiotherapy.
The problem is that, strictly speaking about data, hospitals and clinics run independently from one another. This makes the centralization of patient data very difficult. On top of that, the presence of numerous private radiological medical clinics breaks the data in even more silos.
Patients frequently receive brain tumor diagnoses in county hospitals and are subsequently referred to regional facilities for treatment and follow-up. Unfortunately, the ability to access their medical images is contingent upon the patient providing previously acquired images on a DVD. This reliance on easily breakable and frequently misplaced items should not hinder the management of their medical history. In many instances, patients either forget or are unable, due to their medical condition or emergencies, to bring their personal medical records.
Our Pilot
Right now, when confronted with brain tumor cases, neurosurgeons need to scroll through the images to formulate a plan and end up scanning the patient again. Through our pilot, we will address all the above challenges.
The creation of a regional database will allow the registered personnel to have access at any given time to all of the scans on a secure server.
Benefits
The Regional Smart Health Data Space (RSHDS) would bring numerous benefits:
- Comprehensive case evaluation, enabling thorough evaluation of individual cases, and improving patient care.
- Statistical insights, facilitating the creation of various statistical datasets, and enhancing our understanding of brain tumors.
- Geographical insights, due to the fact that clinicians gain valuable insights into the geographical distribution of mutational brain tumors.
- Retrospective studies, supporting retrospective studies, and helping identify new prognostic factors and correlations among different tumor characteristics.
- Ultimately, digitizing and sharing data through RSHDS will primarily benefit patients by ensuring better, more informed, and efficient healthcare delivery.
